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The Next Social Revolution?
Cryofan writes "In a recent interview, Howard Rheingold (author of Smart Mobs) discussed the possibility of a 'new economic system' born of 'unconscious cooperation' embodied by such technologies as Google links and Amazon lists, Wikipedia, wireless devices using unlicensed spectrum, Web logs, and open-source software. Rheingold speculates that 'the technology of the Internet, reputation systems, online communities, mobile devices...may make some new economic system possible....We had markets, then we had capitalism, and socialism was a reaction to industrial-era capitalism. There's been an assumption that since communism failed, capitalism is triumphant, therefore humans have stopped evolving new systems for economic production.' However, Rheingold is worried that established companies with business models that are threatened by these new technologies could 'quash such nascent innovations as file-sharing -- and potentially put the U.S. at risk of falling behind the rest of the world.'"
Oh my, a 'new economy' based on 'unconscious cooperation'. My, that sounds like Capitalism.
It's called the FREE MARKET, people!
The Philosophy of Liberty | lewrockwell.com
Rheingold is worried that established companies with business models that are threatened by these new technologies could 'quash such nascent innovations as file-sharing -- and potentially put the U.S. at risk of falling behind the rest of the world.'
The easy solution? Make the rest of the world quash innovations such as file-sharing too.
(Sadly, this seems to be too common the attitude, and seems to work somewhat...)
Like which ones? I didn't know there were any since, like, Athens.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
The rest of us are consumers however much we'd like to think of ourselves as somehow above the comman man. But the fact is we buy our equipment from big corporations. Those big corporations will take whatever steps are necessary to stay in business and prosper.
I know I shouldn't feed the trolls and you're going to get rightly modded down to oblivion after I'm done writing this, but...
Big companies of today will try to keep the way they do business unchanged, until such time as the consumer will grow tired enough of their attitude that they'll vote with their wallets. When that happens, those companies one of two things:
- They will evolve and adopt the way consumers want them to do business, simply because it's in their best interest, if nothing else to survive.
- If they can't evolve, they will go the way of the dodo.
You can see the latter happening to media companies. They had their hayday, and they used to have a purpose, which is distributing intellectual material (music, movies...) by distributing the media they're stored on. Now that technology allows people to share the intellectual material without exchanging the physical media, media companies find themselves with no business case. They're superfluous and struggling to stay alive, but they won't be able to adapt, simply because they aren't needed anymore.
Now, in your example, nobody will need to build computers from scratch, because computer-making companies will adapt to whatever new way of distributing goods emerges. That's because, as you point out, people have a need for someone to manufacture computers for them.
I don't know what the new way of distributing/selling computers will be, and how it will happen, but rest assured that it will happen. The RIAAs and MPAAs of the world however will not be part of the new world, that's for sure. The only question is, how many victims will they make in their downfalls...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
I respect Howard Rheingold as a technology writer, but can he at least give some props and credit to digital anarchists and hacktivists who have been writing about these ideas for years?
By the way, the next economic system will be the participatory economics of anarchism. Capitalism is unsustainable. Not only are its days are numbered, but billions around the world want something better and more fair.
Chuck0
http://www.infoshop.org
This interview is especially interesting because it outlines some specifics about HOW this can proceed, using technology as a tool to force social progress. Hopefully governments won't start fucking with things to protect their client corporations and realise that everyone needs to adapt. Otherwise they might as well be full-blown communists.
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Rheingold is worried that established companies with business models that are threatened by these new technologies could 'quash such nascent innovations as file-sharing -- and potentially put the U.S. at risk of falling behind the rest of the world.'"
Since it looks like the only way to do the quashing is through the courts, doesn't that make it a government-managed economy? Only now, instead of "the people's" will, it's "the companies' will". No matter, it's still a club to beat people up with.
Meet the new Communism, [amost the] same as the old Communism.
Seems like Mr Rheingold has been reading a little too much of the good Mr. Doctorows work.
The whole problem with other alternative systems, respect based, communism, or whatever is the simple fact that they require people to be better than they are. Unfortunately people are rotten in general. The typical person can convince themselves that any and all action they take is of the highest order. The current election where both parties seem to have betrayed every principle they espouse is a good example.
Untill you have a literally unlimited production capacity, there will always be incentive for people to take the other guys. If for nothing else people will take yours just to deprive you of having it. As long as their is shortage of desirable goods it doesn't matter wheather you call the currency the Dollar, ruble or the respect unit, the system will wind up looking rather similar.
If you would like to see society get better figure out how to make people a little less rotten.
Industrial capitalism: Presence of corporations, legal "people" with unlimited liability protected by the State. Phony "free trade agreements" and "free trade organizations" which are nothing more than protection of businesses. Strict intellectual property laws. This is what we have in America.
Free-market capitalism: What this guy is describing. No corporations, true free trade (meaning the absence of subsidies, tariffs, embargoes, outsourcing bans, and other restrictions, NOT by agreements or organizations, but by lack of laws.) Whether there is intellectual property or not is debatable. I don't think that this has ever been fully put into practice.
Communism must come from the will of the people, not of a ruling elite. Otherwise it will just be a "state capitalism", and that is the case with the so called "communist states" of today. It's all just one giant evil of an megacorporation. Both the so called "communist states" and corporations are: hierarchical, authoritarian, oppressive and exploitative. There is no democracy in either, and the elite that "owns" the "property" calls the shots.
FWIW, I think that's because only in the US is ice so widely used by the general public. A friend visited from Germany recently, and everywhere he went, he had to make a point of asking them not to put ice in his drink ...
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
This is sounding like a new way to pass the buck. At the same time, there are far more social implications to these technologies.
What geeks saw in the 80's. College students saw in the early 90s, and what the entire world is waking up to now is that by changing the extent of a single persons ability to communicate, we have a much larger base population for any one society.
It is interesting to note that while large corperations are throwing money at ways to resist economic change, governments and traditional cultures are also trying to resist a "global" society by protecting viewpoints,certain sentimentalities,and cultural identification. Are we seeing a unilateral changes in social-political power structures as well as economic systems?
My $.02, but I think I have change coming.
Kei
Christian/Moslim/Jewish/Davidian/Religion X zealots have killed millions of people who didn't agree with them. The Romans did it, the Greeks did it. Every society in the history of the world has gotten rid of pesky infidels. Not just Christians or Moslims, but EVERYBODY!
The common thread, however, is that all these zealots justify their horrible acts with their irrational religious beliefs. It's easy to kill people after you dehumanize them with ideas like "they're going to hell anyway because they're not the chosen ones". Without religion, we would have far less barbaric acts.
Sure, sociopaths can do whatever they want without justification, but a simple "let's go kill some people" won't bring you any followers without some twisted justification.
Congratulations, Howard, you're discovered free markets. Self-organizing, self-optimizing.
Best of all, gussy it up with some techie-speak and no one will ever notice you're repeating one of the best sellers of '76.
1776.
And Ghengis Khan:
AT&T's monopoly was dismembered.
Standard Oil's monopoly was dismembered.
The horrific child labor conditions of the Industrial Age were checked by laws.
Labor unions were established.
The weekend was created.
This is obviously not an exhaustive list, but the point is that business in the United States is not immune to pressure from the population at large. It just takes a lot of hard work and political activism to force change of any kind, and most Americans are for a variety of reasons singularly uninterested in exercising their political power.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
One subtext of this interview seems to be the inefficiency of capitalism, not in the Econ 101 sense of an "efficient market" but in the real sense of creating the most products or having the greatest impact, while using the least resources and selling at the lowest cost. The publishing economy (software, music, every type of media content) is very inefficient in real terms, with media companies still striving to make as much money off a given work as they did in the days when distributing copies was a physical process.
The fact that something like OpenOffice, for example, can be created and distributed without spending millions of dollars, is right out there for everybody to see. If the public eventually recognizes it, our long-held perception of the value of a copy of something might change, to the point where newer business models based on real costs are the only ones that will still work. Why should an industry exist to produce something that for all practical purposes grows on trees. The same goes for the recording industry. If bands can generate fame and get better performance gigs by distributing free copies of their songs, there's no need for them to sign away their rights to a record company.
One obvious way for the old gang to stop this evolution is to outlaw the means that will enable it. Like file sharing.
A few years ago Stephen King was doing an experiment of an end-run around the publishing industry, and doing it wrong (possibly with the intention of poisoning that well for unknown authors, as a bone thrown to his publishing buddies). What he did wrong was to insist that a minimum percentage of downloaders should contribute. What he should have done was release each chapter in response to a total contribution for the previous one, regardless of the percentage. He required an honesty level that wasn't necessary for his business model, and which caused his experiment to "fail".
Most writers obviously don't have the creds of Stephen King. So suppose it's a few years ago and you're Cory Doctorow - you're a very good writer but you're not widely known (now watch as I get told that I was the only person on Earth not following his work for the last 20 years). You have a great idea for a wonderful book about immortality and Disneyland. I forget how many chapters it is, let's say twenty. You put the first four in the public domain and post them on your website. You announce you will post the next chapter when you've gotten contributions totalling some amount of money. If you're good, the contributions will roll in pretty quickly. Maybe you put a thermometer picture on your website to let readers know how close they are to seeing the next chapter.
If this works, the creator gets his money even though the entire work ends up in the public domain. It would be really interesting to see somebody try this.
WWJD for a Klondike Bar?
Wishful thinking.
:)
"Without religion, we would have far less barbaric acts."
The entire 20th century was secular. A secular century, but probably one of our most violent in recorded history. 2 world wars, a cold war where we nearly burnt ourselves to a cold crisp, a Gulf War (and a follow-up in the next century), Vietnam.... just to name a few. A few. All secular.
Secu-freakin'-lar.
If it isn't for God, damn right it'll be for "national interests."
We'll kill each other no matter what.
Cheery, innit?
You didn't set this up for someone to argue that Buddhism fulfills perfectly this definition, did you?
a) Ridding of desire.
b) Termination of suffering of others.
c) Deals heavily in overcoming/coping fear of death and suffering.
This must have been set up.
People who want to make them.
Perhaps there will remain a niche for the blockbuster but hell these days a few thousand bucks will put on your desk the equipment you once needed a studio and production crew to do.
Music passed the point where a home studio can produce a quality production recording a while back.
Movies are not that far behind.
Before you say people will not do something for nothing you need to think about it. Open source is all about people doing something that they want to do without any immediate reward in place.
granted the signal to noise ratio will be worse with general people producing but with something like moderation communities the good stuff will get noticed, recognised and spread around.
Production companies perhaps have life left. Finding and promoting talent... real talent... could be a money making proposition. However they can't remain based on income from physical based media distribution, it is absurd... absolutly absurd in an age that becomes more digital with each passing day.
I don't ask you to be me. I only ask you not expect me to be you.
Who want's half of their drink as ice? You go to the movies and those bastards fill half the cup with it! Seems to me like a classic case of water down the product and rip off the consumer.
-----
One is born into aristocracy, but mediocrity can only be achieved through hard work.
Most actors, good bad or indifferent wait tables or work odd jobs.
The ones that get to do nothing but acting and buy huge mansions in Beverly hills are the exception. Not the rule. And there is no assurance that these are even the best actors. I'd say your assurance these day is that they are the best looking people that have some acting ability. Not the same as saying they are the best actors.
As for how companies can make money promoting the best actors. Simple. They have to provide a service that the public wants and is willing to pay to have provided better than it can do for itself. Some of what they do will still be viable. Set up a web site as a major source of new material with a stamp of approval with a good image rep for having good stuff. Get the hits and make your money from ads, or perhaps people paying you to host your stuff. Hell google essentially gives away gargantuan amounts of bandwidth and makes money doing it. Why couldn't a movie house?
Are you suggesting the only way for them to make money is the way they do it now?
I don't ask you to be me. I only ask you not expect me to be you.
Small companies who are successful selling computers, become big companies or go out of business.
Why does it have to be like this though? Why is it that the stock market must go up, corporate profits must increase, and small companies must become large ones to survive?
Central Banks, that's why. They are so entrenched that just getting rid of them (Federal Reserve buy back) would cause much suffering for most of us.
I haven't heard anyone "pipe up" with a sensible plan to get ourselves out of this hole we've (our grandfathers) dug, but maybe this is it.
An alternative system evolves slowly and quietly alongside the old one, eventually replacing it. The final step would maybe not be a revolution but a collective decision to ignore the old system.
Samsung took back my unlocked bootloader because Google wants me to rent movies. They're both evil.
Some real trends worth following:
This isn't a new phenomenon. There are many tangible products where the manufacturing cost is a tiny fraction of the retail price. Soft drinks, for example. Bottled water. Jeans. Batteries. Printer ink. There are successful business strategies for pushing the price up, ranging from heavy brand promotion to lock-in. Just because it could be cheap doesn't mean it will be.
We're starting to see these strategies applied to the Internet. "SBC Yahoo DSL", and "AOL for Broadband" are examples.
Electric power is a striking example of an unstable market. There's no inventory. Demand is relatively inelastic. Producers have high fixed costs. The result is prices that change by three orders of magnitude within a single day. This huge volatility can be exploited by traders, which makes things worse.
There's much economic theology around this issue, and not enough theory with predictive power. This area needs more simulation and less pontification.
Now these are the real issues in postmodern capitalism. Not peer to peer networking.
No - I think you're right.
We desire cold drinks because it is part of our culture. I have been around the world myself and few places enjoy as cold drinks as we do -- hot or cold. Hell, I just came back from two years in Turkmenistan and they don't put ice in their drinks.
I am a white American but was raised in China. I can't stand having ice in my drink. It is because I was raised in a culture that thinks that cold drinks mess up your system. And I genuinely feel less refreshed when I have half a cup of ice in my drink.
What comes first, finding a teacher or becoming a student?
I think the idea is that with the lowered cost of technology independent movies will be able to gain a greater foothold. This will continue to be true.
The nature of free markets (truly free markets) is that people will do what is possible. Once indy movies are possible at a reasonable quality (something that is subjective) they will find ways to be distribued. As technology for distribution increases (high speed web access, for instance) you will see interesting ways to distribute them.
In a truly free market the profit margin is always very thin -- which is why many don't like the idea of a truly free market...
What comes first, finding a teacher or becoming a student?
by it's very definition Science Fiction is....well, Fiction. Ofcourse this logically entails that all of the things described do not exist and never will. I mean, take this Jules Verne character, I mean, airplanes? submarines? pah, such nonsense, no way. or this whole psychohistory babble this Asimov person brought up...
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
I Think it is more of an issue of how much Ice they put in our drinks. You pay $1.00 for a drink you get 75% Ice and 25% drink. So after you drink less of a serving of drink you have All Ice left which is unprofessional to suck on for the rest of the day.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
We're still years away from digital cameras with higher resolution than film. That may also be impossible; film is about as high resolution as you can get already.
Years away? In principle, that means exactly the same as if they were available today. I'm willing to wait. Besides, what is the resolution of DVD?
As for using blender for special effects? Please, get real.
Again, today. In a few years? Well...
Digital cameras require as complex lighting as film cameras do, unless you want your finished product to look like crap, amateur hour, home movie quality camcorder work.
Well, you can dismiss 'Dogma' (Lars von Trier's cannons of filmmaking) as arty bullshit, but it shows that you _can_ make arguably professional movies with just the natural lighting.
You don't expect EVERYONE to work for free on films, do you?
No, but sure as hell I don't expect or condone the lead in the movie to be paid $xx million dollars. The theatres of the world are filled with actors who don't get paid that much in their whole career, and still can act so much better than most of the 'stars'. The sooner the 'stars' are out of a job, the better, IMHO. The same goes for all the other talent involved in the making of movies.
Thus, if the costs of making a movie can be brought down to something comparable to producing a stage play, the whole game changes. For the better, IMHO.
Knowing the classic American love of conspicious consumption, I think it had to do with the fact that, before refrigeration, the wealthy elites of American society could afford an icehouse or deliveries of ice. They put ice in their drinks; this was emulated by whomever in the middle class could afford it. Once refridgeration spread, everyone could 'look rich' for a penny's worth of water. Ice used to be valuable, and so it remains as a cultural preference to this day.
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
The concept that the runaway consumption of natural resources and the paving over of fertile land
either in the name of western Capitalism, or in the name of nature-unfriendly Communism (China and the former USSR has/had a HORRIBLE environmental record)
can go on forever
is science fiction.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
And why didn't communists adapt, with their organization and central planning, when capitalism did adapt in an efficient and decentralized way? It's not happenstance or a mere coincidence, as you suggest. It's an inherent flaw in the communist system. Capitalism's decentralized system of incentives is inherently a better motivator and decision guide than communism's central planning.
Many Capatalists corporations couldn't either. they over commited to certain methods of production and died. They went bankrupt. The decision makers took the wrong choice. Thats what happened to the USSR. They mad a choice to try and match military output with the US and it bankrupted them. They were unable to both sustain a non-military production and military production on par with the US. Finally their people just wouldn't support the system. Now, without Soviet bribes and force; the other communist states had no incentive to stay communist. Many changed because the US did offer bribes and incentives to change. Many of these states were forced into communism.
OK, how's this: almost every implementation of communism has failed to produce a lasting, prosperous nation. Wikipedia's list of 20th century communist states reads like a list of places not to live.
Cuba is stable, and has done alright considering the embargoes. Yugoslavia had a good regime for a while and a decent living. China is stable, and their transitioning has many other motives.
Also, many countries with a capatalist system are absolute shit holes. The Philipines. Nice to visit but horrible to live in. Jaimaca is incredible to visit but not so good to live in. Fuck, South central LA, The ghettos in detroit ect.. aren't nice places to live.
Many nations struggle with a lot of systems. A lot don't work out. It's not so much an indictment of the system, but the circumstances.
Take Democracy. It fails a lot, partly due to the US. They take a hardline stance against certain beleifs and governments and will over throw a democratic gov. that does not support the US interests and install dictatorships. Did democracy fail there?
Althrough I see your point. It's not just communism that makes those places shit holes. Just as it's not capatalism per se that makes some other places shit holes, but underlying issues. As well, the ideal of the communism systems are prevalent in many Socialist states and their nice places ot live. Canada, Norway, Iceland, France ect.... They lack the centralised economic planning but they have the focus on workers irghts. Does this mena socialism is more successful then Capatalism because it has more countries you want to live in?
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."